The News

There was some excitement this week when $HIVE started 'shooting for the moon'. It was well over a dollar when I woke up on Wednesday after peaking higher. This seems to have been driven by activity in Korea with peak volume over $1B!

I generated this from @coingecko data.

It has calmed down a bit now, but is still higher than it was. I hope it can find a new, improved level that we can build on. Spikes like this tend not to last, but they can attract attention. Hive is more than just a blogging platform with gaming and trading going on too. I expect a few people made a quick profit.

The Followables

Here are some more people I have seen around who you could check out. I always advise people to follow those whose content they will enjoy. Make your feed entertaining.

• @daphnelage is a comic artist from New York with some really fun published work in the fantasy genre. She just joined up.
• @sebcam has been on here about as long as I have. He is a Brit in the USA where he has run ridiculous distances on a vegan diet. He has also done up a van to live in. He has loads of videos to check out.
• @the-bitcoin-dood is also in the USA and is the one who brought me here (blame him!). He has been experimenting with cameras to record his motorcycle travels. He also features lots of crypto news.
• @ashtv in the UK is showing off a really cool music video he made.
• @sidekickmatt has completed a fun series on vintage comic book heroines who he has re-imagined.

I will mention @nathen007 again as he also does #FollowFriday posts.

Also, have you registed for @hivefest next month? It is free to attend this virtual festival, so you have no excuses.

The Doghouse

This is not so much about abuse this time as about those who miss out on real engagement on Hive. Although many concentrate on the money what really matters is people. You can fish for bot votes, but you will probably not make it big without real human followers. To get that you need real engagement. That means responding to comments you get and commenting on posts you enjoy. You will not always get a folow, a response or a vote, but people may get used to seeing you around. I have made over 47,000 comments in five years and look what happened!

When you do comment make it worth reading. 'Nice' or 'Wow' may not be considered interesting or worth a vote. Also, be sincere. Flattery can get you only so far.

I do wonder if some people even check the comments they get on their posts. My @proofofbrian bot comments on some that had mis-spelled a popular tag, but they do not seem to have taken any notice. They will not be earning the tokens they hoped for.

I hear that some of the Hive communities can be unfriendly, especially if you do not exactly follow whatever rules they have set. Be sure to check what those are first, but if you have a bad experience then look elsewhere. You can start your own community if you want, but you will have to work on building it up. I think they should be primarily about a common interest rather than getting votes. Make it somewhere people want to go. Use the cross-post feature to get some content in there.

There are bound to be people on Hive who you do not like and you may encounter some trolls, but they are a tiny minority. Find those who make your experience good. If you manage to rub some people up the wrong way then avoid them.

The End

After five years I am still excited about this platform. We have so much cool stuff going on. You can support it with votes on the relevant posts, but also by voting for witnesses. You have thirty votes to use or you can set a proxy to vote on your behalf. This affects what the witnesses will make and also who will get to decide where the blockchain goes, so your votes do matter. Use them wisely.

Hive five!